The festive season in rural Italy

This past festive season was our first in rural Italy. Instead of going elsewhere, we decided to stay in order to be able to answer the immortal question of Monty Python’s Eric Idle: “What’s it like?”

Well, I really don’t want to disappoint, but aside from the January 6^th festival of Befana (which we missed anyway), we didn’t find anything especially different, exotic, or traditional (other than of course the fact that one is in Italy amongst Italians, a rather distinct fact in and of itself). In fact, even “Babbo Natale” (Father Christmas) is inherited from the commercial English-speaking world.

Unlike some other European cultures (like the Germans) who have their main celebration on the 24^th, Italy celebrates primarily on the 25^th(like us English-speakers). It all starts with a midnight mass, a mercifully (moderately) short one, attended primarily for the post-service social mingling, before the serious eating begins at lunchtime on the 25^thand beyond.

On Christmas Day we had a delicious but non-traditional (i.e. no turkey) lunch with our Irish friends, and Maria cooked the traditional local meal on the 26^th after tapping our dyed-in-the-wool marchigiani carpenter for details of the menu. First comes tortellini in brodo, with the broth that they swim in drawn from the boiling of a capon, which is eaten as a second course. The capon – no easy feat to find one, and a weighty price tag when Maria did – was very tasty in spite of the unappetizing thought of a boiled bird. [The contadini around here routinely boil chicken, a far less appetizing prospect.]

As with my own heritage, out here Christmas is for family, while New Year’s eve is spent with friends. Locals from the area whose roots go back a good way may spend several days wading through meal after meal with various branches of their families, but they approach it uncomplainingly and without question as a duty, one that cements the family ties which penetrate deep, long and supportively throughout their entire lives.

Family ties and bonds notwithstanding, there seemed to be a palpable relief at the arrival of New Year’s eve, requiring just one last eating marathon to cap the season. “Capo anno” they call it – top (or head/source) of the year. We were invited with 3 other local families to the home of Piergiovanni and deputy mayor Ornella, our Italian friends and hiking companions.

The food lasted from about 8:30 until midnight. First came about 4 different antipasti (including a variety of local cold cuts), followed by 3 different primi piatti (pasta), and then the secondo, a traditional dish of lentils, representing money and good fortune for the following year. If there’s any room left after all that, there’s fruit, including grapes which, like the lentils, bring hopes of moolah in the year to come.

Following the countdown to the new year, we stepped outside into the brisk air to watch the fireworks all over the countryside. Being a hilly terrain, there’s no bad vantage point, and dozens of light shows were visible, including a few tame ones of our own bought with the groceries at the local supermarket. Then back we went inside to begin the games, a light-hearted indulgence of silly fun with adults and kids divided into 2 teams. When we left at 2:30 a.m. it was still going strong, and the tombola (bingo) boards – apparently a fixture at many Italian celebrations – had just been brought out.

All thoroughly enjoyable, I must say, not least because it was the kind of occasion where my patchy Italian was passable and intellectual conversation was restricted to the bare minimum (if that).

Maria and Julius left for Germany on the 1^st, and in the absence of a child in the house, Befana came and went without notice. Here, however, is the essence –

La Befana is a folklore character who visits all the children in Italy on the eve of 6 January, filling their socks with candy if they are good or a lump of coal if they are bad. She is usually portrayed as an old lady riding a broomstick through the air wearing a black shawl because she enters the children's houses through the chimney.

Her name is derived from a mispronunciation of the word "epiphany" upon which the legend is based. Apparently she turned down the 3 wise men to accompany them on their quest to find Jesus, and when she had a change of heart, she went after them but couldn't find them. And so she's still looking.

So there you have it. No snow, unfortunately, and so no white Christmas - I've never had one before, and so was hoping ... However, aside from a good dump of the stuff at the beginning of December, the snow's been restricted to the mountains. Now that Julius is back home, we shall have to take ourselves up there to enjoy the season's spoils - his Christmas and birthday presents: skiing lessons and a ride on his new sleds...